Grand Central, Central Park & Empire State Building

A peek out the window this morning showed clear skies and bright sunshine. Rather quick change after the snow of yesterday. Still pretty cold temperature of 7C as the maximum.

After a bit of a sleep-in for Jesse who has caught a cold, we headed out to Grand Central Station. Along the way we found a road side Sunday market so had a browse through it. Grand Central Terminal was not as busy as expected, but it was a Sunday and it is still a pretty impressive building.

From Grand Central we took the subway out to uptown 87th St, where the Guggenheim Museum is located. Unfortunately the spiral portion of the museum was close for repairs so we did not get to visit it. Central Park is right next to Guggenheim so we had a wander through the muddy paths in the park. Portions of it where still covered in snow that had not melted despite the mid afternoon sunshine.

Next on the agenda was to go to the top of the Empire State Building. It was completed in 1931, just one year and forty five days after breaking ground. They built one floor per day! A pretty incredible feat. In the lobby is an Art Deco Masterpiece made out of 23K gold and aluminium leaf, depicting the building set against a map of the Empire State and surrounding areas.

There was a bit of a queue and strict security screening. After an hour's delay we managed to get tickets to head up to the observation deck. The elevators only go to the 80th floor, and there was the option to wait half an hour for the other elevator or to walk up 6 floors. Time to stretch those legs! :) We paid a bit extra to go to the newly reopened 102nd floor, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The area had glassed in windows that were smudged so could not get any good photos. The 86th floor had the open-air area which was nice but really, really cold. The sun was starting to set by this time, so we got great twilight and night views of New York.

-Y-

Let it SNOW!

I started to get a sore throat last night and so we decided to take it slow this morning and kick back at the hotel.  I have to admit that when I heard that snow was forecast today that I didn't quite believe it, but sure enough, just before midday Yumi stuck her head to look out the window and squealed - IT'S SNOWING!

It's the first time either of us have really seen snow fall so it was pretty exciting I have to admit.
We enjoyed watching it fall and build up, but eventually got hungry and decided to head out for a wander as I was feeling better.  We rugged up as good as we could and decided to head up to the Sony Wonder lab to see what it was all about.
Now snow is pretty cool when it's falling, but snow turns into slush and we discovered this hiking up the 14 blocks to the Sony Wonder Lab.  We were getting hungry around this time too, and decided to stop at TGIF where we both had a lovely steak before heading off to the Sony Wonder Lab once more.
The snow/sleet hadn't slowed and the wind had picked up, so our hands were freezing before long and we decided to stop at Uni Qlo and pick up some gloves - man what a difference they made!  We continued our hike to the Sony Wonder Lab and unfortunately were a little disappointed with the Sony experience - half the setups they had were either broken or under repair.
We decided to do a little shopping on the way back and discovered that Esprit had 40% off everything - I picked up a scarf here - thus completing my winter outfit and keeping my throat warm.  We managed a quick visit to Tiffany's and Co before they shut their doors for the night and then hiked the 14 blocks back to the hotel, by this point we both had soaked jeans and shoes and we were glad to change into clean and dry clothes.
Apparently there was up to 6 inches of snow that fell today in some areas of New York - and it was predicted that at least 10 inches would fall before it stopped sometime after midnight.  It's also the earliest snow recorded since the civil war days when they started recording it, so that's pretty amazing.
Crazily enough it's forecast for sunshine again tomorrow - though it'll still be cold, but hopefully we can do some more sightseeing tomorrow!

New York, New York

We arrived in the evening on our first day in New York, so after checking in to our hotel we decided to go for a walk and try and get our bearings and find some place to eat.

Our Hotel is very conveniently located, we're 2 blocks from Times Square, 2 blocks from Grand Central Station and surrounded by all the Broadway theatres.  We also have an awesome balcony view!

We wandered down to Times Square first, and as Yumi had a hankering for seafood again we went to Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company.  This is a chain of stores, all with Forrest Gump as it's hero and before we were able to get our meal we were grilled with questions about the Forrest Gump movie.  To attract the waitress' attention you would flip a license plate that said 'Run Forrest Run' to 'Stop Forrest Stop'.  The food was pretty average though, so we skipped dessert and set off to find the TKTS booth to see if we could see a show that night.  We knew so little about any of the shows so it was like lucky dip for us and we ended up picking 'Anything Goes' - which conveniently was playing only a street away from our hotel.

The show was fun, being a musical comedy about a guy who jumped on board a cruise ship trying to follow the girl of his dreams.  We had a good laugh at all the antics that happened aboard.

Yumi had a meeting with the New York Poisons Info Center the next day, so while she got a tour of their facility I decided to get my bearings and wander around the NY streets, first walking up to the Rockefeller Plaza, then about 20 blocks down 6th Avenue before walking back up 5th Avenue.  I found Macy's, supposedly one of their largest stores (it took up almost an entire block), and had fun wandering around it before heading back to the hotel to meet up with Yumi again.  We were both hungry by then so decided to head out and grab a burger for lunch and went to Heartland Brewery (HB)  Burger.  They brew their own beers at this place and we got a couple of their mini-pint glasses as souvenirs. 

It'd been raining most of this day and the clouds meant there was no point going sightseeing so we decided to head up to the Rockefeller Plaza and check out the Sony Wonder Lab - though after the walk up there we discovered it was closed for maintenance that day.  Instead we wandered back and ended up going inside the new Global Flagship Store of Uni Qlo - which had only recently opened and had some great opening bargains available.  I picked up a nice Cashmere jumper and a couple of t-shirts, while Yumi bought a couple of merino tops.  The place was massive and we lost each other a few times inside.  We headed back to the hotel after that, the rain had worsened and we were pretty damp when we got back to our hotel.

The next day was sunny and clear though - making up completely for the day before and we headed up to the Rockefeller building once more this time aiming to go up to the Top of the Rock which had an impressive view of the city around it.

Including the impressive Empire State building and the Chrysler Building.

We took many many photos of the city around, see them in our picasa album here.

After that we had booked a 90 minute Midtown Harbor Cruise, so we headed off to that.  We arrived a bit too late for the 2pm tour we'd originally booked, so we went on the 4pm tour instead.  Now despite the sunny and clear day, it was very cold after a day of raining and we were both regretting not buying gloves and earmuffs for the harbor cruise - we got to see some beautiful sights, including the whole Manhattan skyline, the new One World Trade Centre building (still being built), Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and of course Lady Liberty herself - but we froze somewhat in the process.

Tampa, Florida

After the cold of Washington DC, we headed off to Tampa to enjoy a bit of sunshine and to catch up with my Uncle and his family. It was a nice treat not to have to walk everywhere after the 10 miles in DC! :)

We had a wander around International Plaza and lunch there, followed by a drive around downtown Tampa, Channelside, a glimpse of Harbour Island, then back to uncle KK's beautiful home just outside of town. We saw some eagles and a blue heron by the lake. The best of city and country living combined.  We hit Hungry Harry's BBQ Restaurant for dinner that night - Jesse had Baby backed BBQ ribs for dinner, while I had the mixed platter with Ribs, Chicken, Pulled Pork and Beef.  They were huge meals so we had no room for desert at the end!

We mainly just took it easy and had a bit of a pause here. We got to check out Uncle KK's Lego and awesome robots collection. Had a chance to go to the Ellenton Premium Outlet for some retail therapy. It was a bit of a drive, but I think we got a few bargain items! Thanks for driving us there Uncle KK and Aunty Maha!

Tuesday we were treated to lunch at Columbia's in Ybor city. It was a very delicious paella! Will have to go home and try to make my own paella again. Ybor city is the older part of Tampa, a bit run down, full of cigar shops and nightclubs. The main highlight of the day was definitely the segway tour of downtown Tampa. We met up with our guide at Channelside for a quick briefing on the do's and don'ts of the segway. This was followed by a half hour  practice on the segway before we headed out. A bit apprehensive at first but soon got the hang of it. It is certainly a very cool human transporter, though at $5300 each I won't let Jesse buy one.

After we were all comfortable on our segways we started zipping down the sidewalks along the harbour, down by the river, through the heart of the city, going past the University of Tampa with its interesting Henry Plant Building, then back to Channelside. It was great fun, and as we all started getting more comfortable on the segway could enjoy the view more and take some photos and videos. Cold stone ice-cream and some delicious Vietnamese spring rolls topped off our last night in Tampa.

- Y -

Washington, D.C. - the city of monuments and sore feet

This city has 155 monuments, plus heaps of museums, galleries, etc and we had just over one day to see it all!
We arrived last night at Ronald Reagan Airport around 6pm.  It was around 7pm by the time we'd checked into our hotel and decided to wander out for some night photos of Washington, DC.

We walked to the White House first, got some photos from the front then made our way to the other side.
We then wandered up to the Washington Monument which was glowing in the distance.  From there we saw the Capitol building in the distance by then and thought we'd walk closer.. not realising really how far it was - we walked.. and walked and walked, and then decided we really didn't feel like walking much further and so took our best photos and headed back.  We meandered past the National Gallery, National Archives, Dept of Justice and walked back the rest of the way to our hotel - stopping only briefly to grab a quick dinner on the way.

This morning we decided to sleep in and take it easy to start with, both our batteries were low so we didn't get going on our travels until 11am or so.  We caught the Metro to get closer to the Capitol Building and this time wandered right up to it and got some awesome photos of it, the Grant memorial, then we wandered up to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and had a wander around inside.  This place had a huge collection of planes, rockets, and satellites.  The plane that Amelia Earheart flew, the Wright Brothers planes, and NASA's spacecraft that they landed on the moon.  Pretty cool stuff.
We then walked over to the Smithsonian National History Museum and rushed through, but got to see some pretty amazing exhibits, including the beautiful Hope Diamond - one of the largest flawless diamonds in the world.
We were pretty tired by this point, and decided to catch a pedi-cab to the Lincoln Memorial and give our feet a bit of a break.  The pedi-cab guy was great and we felt bad for him when we realised how far it really was (prolly 2-3 miles or about 3-4km) and gave him a bit extra.
The Lincoln memorial was pretty cool - got some great photos of it and then we wandered back along past the Korean War memorial, Martin Luthor King memorial, and made our way around the tidal basin to the Jefferson Memorial.
We were both getting pretty tired by this point and I'd worked up a blister on my toe and was starting to limp so we decided to head back - we caught the Metro back to the White House and got a few more shots of it in the daytime before heading back to the hotel where we had dinner and called it a day.
By my calculation, we've traveled around 10 miles (16km) since we got here!

- J -

EMP - Experience Music Project

A really cool place to spend a few hours is the EMP located in Seattle Center.  They had a special Avatar, Nirvana and Battlestar Galactica exhibition on. They also have a hands-on sound lab to play in, even a left handed guitar! :)

Avatar was really good, showing the various ideas and development that went into each plant, animal, character in the movie. It showed how they filmed and edited the various scenes, and how they made use of the virtual camera. Each scene was filmed with over 100 cameras everywhere, so it is then easy to go back and pick the angle that the director wanted. They had a show clip where you could try to film your own little scene, makes for very hilarious watching as it is not so easy.

The Sound lab was cool, giving you the chance to try and play the guitar, drums and keyboard, with little tutorials on how to use each piece of instrument. They also had little recording booths that you can try and record your own music, with various mixing equipment, just like a real recording artist. Very fun!

The most impressive was the Root and Branches sculpture in the middle,named "If VI was IX" by artist and composer Trimpin. It is made up of 700 guitars all linked in, to make a computer controlled self playing guitar. These sounds are programmed on a specific formula to create music live that you can listen to via headsets. Not surprisingly the creator of that sculpture has musical training and an electrical engineering degree.

-Y-

Engines not included

The Boeing factory in Seattle claims to be the world's largest building. The whole area is so large it has its own zip code! They employ approx 60,000 employees, working 24/7 in 3 shifts. The employees have to come to work over staggered times each shift just to avoid a traffic jam! There are 13 cafes on site, otherwise it would take too long for an employee to have lunch. Each door is 80 feet high by 100 yards wide (24m x 91.5m), it takes 20 minutes to open the doors to each assembly line. They have their privately owned freeway overhead pass, heavily reinforced to be able to withstand the weight of the plane, once it is completely assembled and ready to be moved to the runway for test flights. Just for an idea of how massive the whole place is.

On the tour they took us to see the Boeing 747, 777 and the latest 787 Dreamliner assembly lines. The 787 is the latest aircraft, being outfitted on a moving assembly line like the 777. When they get up to full production estimates are to be able to have one fully assembled in 3 days! All the materials are pre-fab and flown in on the 747 Dreamlifter, which has been modified to have a bigger almost bubble like look to it. I liked the fact that the engineers have their desks right on the side of the assembly hangar, so if there are problems/questions, they are not far away. The 787 is made of 51% composite, which makes it lighter and less likely to corrode, as a result they can have cabin humidity up to a comfortable 35%, LED lighting, larger windows, and 1-1.5 inches wide seats in economy. Dreamliner indeed!

Engines are not included in the price of the aircraft. You have to buy the engines separately, then have it delivered to Boeing for it to be installed.

Once assembled it is then painted with a special ionisation technique, so it does not shear off at high speeds. Now why do you think majority of aircrafts are painted white? There is a good reason for it.

-Y-

Seattle Day 2 - Underground tour

While Jesse is off working hard at the Microsoft conference, I get to have a lazy relaxed day. :)

Took the Underground tour. Parts of Seattle is built upon the old buildings that were destroyed by fire in the1800s then the earthquake. You are literally walking in the spaces below the side walks, most of the skylights are still intact, and form part of the normal street. However they've covered up a lot of it, since the glass gets slippery and starts to breakdown. The glass has an interesting purplish colour, due to the manganese content of glass back in those days, which develops over years. Interesting to note as well is that it is below sea level, and used to be mud flats. So it made sense for them to build up where they could. As for how the fire started, a carpenter's apprentice was melting down blocks of glue to use, which caught fire when he wasn't watching. He then made the mistake of puring water on a mostly oily mixture, which splattered and caught the carpentry shop on fire, which was near the general goods store, that back in those days were full on munitions, and whiskey. Needless to say, it all went up in flames with those perfect sources of fuel.

Had a Creole lunch of a sampler plate of Jambalaya, Crawfish pie and gumbo. Very different cuisine to what I have experienced before. Not bad. Walked off lunch by wandering down to the Piers, looking for the bus to take me to Olympic Sculpture park. There was meant to be a free 99 bus, which I never did see. So ended up walking all the way there. Great view along the waterfront.

Visited the Glass blowing studio, which was another 9 blocks walking,  followed up by a bit of retail therapy then back to the hotel. I got asked today where I'm from, and that they liked my accent. Do I answer I'm from Malaysia or Australia?

-Y-

Seattle - Pike Place Markets and Space Needles

Arrived in Seattle after a short 2.5 hour flight. Such a difference in weather, nice and chilly here compared to Vegas. We managed to check into our hotel early, despite the hotel having a computer systems crash.

We are staying in Bellevue, which is on the other side of the Sound.  Interesting way that they set up the public transport across from Bellevue to Seattle downtown. There's a tunnel that the SoundTransit buses and train only goes through, under a good section of downtown Seattle. This means there will be no traffic jams for those buses, making it quite efficient. They also offer free public transport in the downtown area during office hours.

It was my only free day to explore Seattle, so we decided to head out quickly, despite being somewhat tired, and see the sights.  We went to Pike Place Markets first - where they have a huge collection of art, crafts, fruit and fish.  The place is well known for the fish guys calling out in unison and then throwing fish across to each other.  We were somewhat hungry by then so stopped there and had a nice seafood lunch while overlooking the Puget Sound bay.  The day was beautiful - crisp air, but warm and apparently very unlike Seattle - we brought the Aussie weather with us!  Yumi couldn't help herself with all the lovely fruit and ended up buying a huge pomegranate and a couple of punnets of raspberries and blackberries.

We next caught the Monorail out to the Seattle Space Needle, the most iconic image of Seattle really - and took the trip up and got some awesome photos from up top and down below - especially after we discovered the beautiful pinky/purple EMP building with it's wonderful metallic surface was just made for reflective shots.  Yumi and I both photo-geeked out and spent a good hour taking photos at various angles.  We walked up to the top of the hill afterwards (planning to get more photos) and noticed that there was an IMAX theatre nearby and so decided to catch a movie together - we saw Real Steel and enjoyed it, then took yet more photos of the Space Needle as it was dark by then.
We had dinner in a local pub in Seattle downtown before heading back to the hotel where we promptly crashed.

- J

CSI & David Copperfield

Being CSI fans, we just had to go for CSI: The Experience at the MGM Grand. You are given a case to solve, and the various 'labs' to analyse your samples and data. Not quite as easy as they make it look on TV. It's a job where you have to be very observant of the smallest details.  We both enjoyed the crime solving and solved our cases!

This followed with an evening show of David Copperfield at MGM Grand as well.  He did some pretty amazing illusions, and though I thought I'd be able to pick out how he did it I couldn't fault him at all and he made it look so easy - he even made a huge car appear on stage while members of the audience we're all around and no-one was the wiser - incredible!
Even cooler, at the start of the show he asked those with Twitter accounts to post a tweet to him, which Jesse did and got invited to join the Meet and Greet after the show!
We did so and received a signed photo each, got to take a photo with David Copperfield, and saw him perform a card trick for the small group of about 10 people.  

Awesome way to finish our last night in Vegas!

Las Vegas & Blue Man Group

It certainly lives up to its reputation as "Sin City". Cool city to people watch - you've got your single girls and guys looking to party and live it up, you've got your brides/grooms to-be enjoying their pre and post wedding parties and you've got your retirement age groups out to explore the city.

We only had a couple days there so was a flying visit.  We had a nice wander around in the afternoon, after a delicious lunch at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe in Caesar's Palace. There is an abundance of nice restaurants here, and every one seems to be headed by a famous chef. The fake sky inside Caesar's Palace is certainly deceiving, giving the illusion that it is still day when it might be later already. The shops are very high-end stuff, and certainly you get some quirky shops too.

We got tickets to see Blue Man group that night. Certainly worth the price of the ticket. Its a comedy fun show,   completely silent but for the music. 3 guys paint themselves blue and dress in black outfits, supported by a 7 piece band and some improvised musical instruments played by the Blue men. They also play with food - throwing it across the stage into each others mouth - and paint, splattering the first 7-8 rows of the audience with it when they beat their drums ( they were given ponchos in advance ).  We also got covered in toilet paper, huge streams of it spread over the theatre!  Had a great time and even got a photo next to one of the Blue Men at the end!

- Y

SF - Geek Day - Googleplex & Computer History Museum

Geek Day!

Can you guess what we did?

Yes we went out to Google Offices in Mountain View, San Franciso. An hour's Caltrain ride out to Mountain View and a bus to the offices. And all we got were photos of Android! :p

It was cool to see the various Android figurines outside Building 44, and Jesse got photos with all of it, most importantly Icecream Sandwich which had only been released the day before.

Later we walked to the Computer History Museum. Pretty cool collection of old computers and its development. Interesting to note that most of the computers development was mainly in a 5 square miles radius in this area.

We got a lift back to town with Jesse's friend, and the geek debate continued in the car while I had a snooze in peak hour traffic. :)

-Y-

Alcatraz & Golden Gate Bridge

The next morning we had organied a trip to Alcatraz - it was a beautiful day, with no fog and visibility was great so it was a perfect opportunity for photos.  It was also rather hot tho, so we cooked while waiting in line but it was all worth it.  Alcatraz is a big rock out in the middle of the bay overlooking San Francisco.  They used it as a maximum security prison because it was remote and yet the image of SF being so close as well (much closer than rottnest!) gave the prisoners something to strive for.   It wouldn't be a hard distance to swim, but the water temp (~13'C) and dangerous currents and rips made it almost impossible.  There were many escape attempts during the years it was a prison, but no known escapees.  Al Capone, The Birdman and others were imprisoned there and it was a dark, cold and creepy place.  The audio tour was awesome though, with many of the original guards and even prisoners talking about their time there.

After Alcatraz we decided it was time to have lunch, so we hit the Boudin Sourdough Restaurant on Fishermans Wharf for a delicious Clam Chowder in a bread bowl.  You get as much of their sourdough bread you can eat, and the Clam Chowder soup was delicious - the only thing is that they don't offer any Jam to go with the bread :)

We headed up to the Golden Gate Bridge after lunch, catching a bus up to the viewing point - the day was still clear and it was a perfect time to take photos of San Francisco's iconic bridge.  We walked up along the bridge too, and got a few photos of the bay and the city from there as well.


After catching a bus ride back we went back to our hotel and went off to a restaurant in the Italian district that some fellow aussies we'd met the night before had recommended - Tony's Pizza - apparently an award winning restaurant and we thought we'd compare his creations to Little Caesars back in Perth.  We tried the Fear and Loathing Pizza and it was delicious.  Described as "pulled pork slow cooked with tamarind, serranos, habaneros, citrus and tomato over mozzarella, topped with fresh cactus, agave nectar salsa and queso fresco." - Obviously we had to try it and we weren't disappointed!!!

- J

Yosemite National Park

We took a tour up to Yosemite National Park today. It was a long drive but well worth the trip. Great big sequoia trees, sugar pine trees in the old growth forest. By old they mean more than 800 years old! Great big tree trunks that would take 5-6 people to go around it. The national park itself is pretty impressive. El Capitan and Half Dome are apparently good spots for rock climbing, though we didn't spot anyone on it today. You've gotta be an expert to climb those rocks for sure! Definitely not for the faint hearted.

We weren't so adventurous, sticking to the standard baby hiking trails, going halfway up Verdun Falls and getting some nice shots from there of the Half Dome. Lots of squirrells running around and saw a couple of deers, which were quite happy to pose for photos (Photos to follow).

Alas time there was too short. If anyone is planning a trip to Yosemite, highly recommend trying to stay a night or two. We tried to book but it was sold out quite far in advance.

Later...
-Y

Enjoying San Francisco

We've been in San Francisco for a few days now and been enjoying ourselves.  Unfortunately we've had pretty limited net so far as the hotel's free wifi only works on the first level and drops out constantly, so its taken me a while to get some photos and posts up.
It hasn't stopped us from having fun though!

On Monday the weather changed and we had rain forecast throughout the day so Yumi and I decided to go visit the California Academy of Sciences at Golden Gate Park.  We caught a bus out there and explored the place.  The CAS comprises of an aquarium, planetarium, rainforest exhibit and national history museum all in one huge venue.  Its the perfect place to hide out of the rain, though we weren't the only ones thinking that and because Monday was also Columbus Day in the US it was also full of kids!  We had fun though - the place is pretty amazing and we spent the entire day exploring it.

That evening we caught up with one of my high school friends, Kirk and his girlfriend Katie, for dinner - enjoyed a lovely meal at a restaurant near his house and drank much wine.  We also got to try one of the popular american dishes, Pulled Pork, which we both enjoyed.

Tuesday was fine and sunny again, so after brunch we headed out and decided to go and visit Sausalito - a town on the other side of the bay that has a feel much like Fremantle.  We caught a ferry there from Pier 41 and experienced why they call SF ffog city.  A huge bar of fog lay just off the coast of SF bay and it was like a grey bar on the horizon, obscuring everything.  We went through it on the ferry to get to Sausalito and then couldn't see Sf on the other side, just the tips of some of the buildings above it.  Alcatraz was completely obscured from both sides, as was the Golden Gate bridge.

Sausalito is a lovely town with nice shops and a relaxed kind of atmosphere so we enjoyed a nice chilled wander around before catching the ferry back once more.  Yumi felt like crab for dinner so we looked up on Yelp to see who was good locally and decided on Scoma's Restaurant.  Yumi had a whole Dungeness crab while I had Salmon on lobster ravioli.  Both meals were delicious and Yumi thoroughly enjoyed her crab which she said was very fresh!
We had dessert at Ghiradelli square after that before catching the cable car home once more - this time we got inside the cab which was a lot nicer ride!

I've uploaded more photos to picasa now so you can check out the last few days.  I also posted a video of Yumi enjoying her crab on Facebook so check that out too if you can :)

Off to Yosemite now.. will post more later!

Arrived in San Francisco safely

Arrived safely in SF yesterday, managed to get some sleep on the flight so after a quick shower and change of clothes we had a quick wander around Union Square and then thought we'd catch a tram to Pier 39 and have a nice lunch.  Nice idea, but we soon discovered that Fleet Week was on and the place was packed full of people wanting to see the Blue Angels doing their flight stunts.  
We bravely waded through the crowds though and managed to have a nice seafood lunch on Pier 39 and then wandered up along Fishermans Wharf and after an hour long wait managed to catch a cable car ride back to our hotel.  The cable car ride was fun, the big black "grip man" on the cable car kept a running commentary that was worth the $6 fare alone.  We also took spots hanging on the side of the cable car - Yumi perched right at the front and me right behind her hanging onto the poles on the side and keeping an eye out for traffic!  Yumi got a video of the trip and I'll try and upload it when I get a chance.
We had a good sleep when we got back to our hotel that night!

Finally..... San Francisco!
After travelling through 2 times zones in 2 days, and reliving 9/10/11 again, we have arrived in San Francisco. Note to self: pick better flight connections for long haul flights! :)

We got in safely to San Francisco on a nice sunny afternoon. After checking into the Hotel Beresford, we wondered down to Union Square, then decided to head down to Pier 39 for lunch. It was Fleet Week, with an airshow on today, so we joined the crowds down at Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf to watch the aerial acrobatics and fighter jets flying by. Crowds of people lined up at the jetty and wharfs for the festivities.

We followed this by an interesting cable car ride back to Union square - and I mean interesting, I was right up the front, hanging off the side rails going up and down San Franciso hills! Had my camera doing a video throughout the 15 min ride, will post the video later when we have better internet. 
-Y

Made it to Auckland

Made it to the rugby obsessed Auckland safely.  Was a short flight but confuses your body a lot because of the time zone changes.  We left at 6.20pm and arrived at 5.15am the next morning but our bodies still think it's barely midnight as it's only a 6hr flight.
The city doesn't open until 9.30am, so we spend the first few hours pretty zonked out at the airport before we decided to catch a shuttle in to wander around.  We're at a cafe on the waterfront right now enjoying a nice hot chocolate and coffee (and free wifi!) tho shops should be opening up about now so we'll go wandering again soon.

There's also this Rugby World Cup on here atm and the huge P&O Pacific Dawn cruise ship is in the harbour and so the place is busy.  One good thing about a quick stop in NZ is cheap Merino wool stuff - one of my favourite brands, Icebreaker, has a store right at the airport and i plan on taking advantage of the strong AUD on the way out and pick up another pair of merino socks :)

We need to get back to the airport at 2pm so a few more hours to explore yet!
- J

Departing tomorrow

So we leave tomorrow - the first leg of the trip is to San Francisco, via Auckland, NZ.

We have a 12hr stopover in Auckland before we continue on though, so it's going to be a good chance to explore Auckland (for a little while anyway) - we arrive around 6am and depart at 6pm that night.

Preparing to leave

So we're getting everything ready for this big trip and figured we'd re-purpose this old blog for our US 2011 trip.

Bookmark this and we'll be sure to add more info as we leave!